Mozilla launches Site Compatibility Tools for Firefox

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Site Compatibility Tools is a new extension for the Firefox web browser designed to find and report site compatibility issues experienced in Firefox.

If you take Internet Explorer and the old Microsoft Edge out of the picture, as they are not the focus of development anymore, you are left with Firefox and Safari when it comes to browsers with a sizeable user base that are not based on Chromium.

With Chrome's huge market share on the desktop, it is becoming a trend seemingly that certain websites or services don't work well in Firefox or not at all. Google plays a role here certainly, as it is not uncommon to find the company block browsers from accessing updated products or services, or even new ones, at least for a period of time.

A few examples: the new Google Earth release of 2017 was Chrome exclusive, the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge was blocked from accessing the new YouTube, or accusations that Google made YouTube slower for other browsers deliberately.

Mozilla is very aware of the implications; the organization launched several projects and initiatives to tackle the issue from different angles. It launched a Web Compatibility page in Firefox recently that lists changes that Firefox makes to certain sites to get them to display and work properly in the browser.

Site Compatibility Tools

Site Compatibility Tools is another tool that has just been released. Web developers are the main audience but anyone may download and install the extension.

The first version of the extension supports reporting functionality and provides site compatibility news for Firefox versions. Mozilla plans to extend that in the future by integrating a site compatibility checker in the extension. Once launched, it would give webmasters and developers a tool at hand to test websites for compatibility issues directly in Firefox.

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